The wrong side of the road

I’m driving on the wrong side of the road at over a hundred miles an hour. I’ve had a couple of beers and I’m not wearing any shoes. The setting sun is firing blood red lasers across the darkening sky so obviously I’m wearing shades. Short of installing an untethered goat in the passenger seat, it’s hard to see how I could further abuse the highway code. The sunroof is wide open, the radio is cranked up to a Spinal Tap 11 and I’m screaming along with Robbie Williams. That in itself is a crime against humanity for which there can be little excuse.

But if I get stopped, I’m safe. My defence is unimpeachable. I’m going to plead Mountain Biking. A couple of hours before I’m having it large in that place way beyond the comfort zone but still inside hellraiser central where the only thing buffering you from a huge stack is about three seconds. Writing about riding is similar to writing about sex – you can convey the meaning but never the feeling. So rather than recording the event in a linear model, I’m choosing an approach with as many flash sideways as flash backs.

Riding sometimes transcends logic. How can a single revolution of the planet move you from depression to ecstasy? Only yesterday the trails, reduced to a soul destroying slog by the incessant spring rain and the churning of a thousand hoofs, had reduced my workday skive to an extended session in the pub. Late spring delivered sunny skies but dreadful trails with the jewel in the crown of our favourite route being nothing more than a bitter memory of better days. And yet one day on, migrating twenty miles south it was not only the Earth which rotated as wheel sucking mud was replaced by hard packed singletrack.

Chasing my full suss pal down a rutted descent whose wide open entry hid a sharp chicane in the trees, I knew we were beyond serious and into giggling territory. His computer said 32 mph but if he’d screamed it out, I wouldn’t have heard with the wind rendering me deaf and a preservation instinct creating a bubble where only staying upright had validity. He lost it as we hit the woods harvesting nettles with his unclipped appendage. Fat hope brakes mocked the gap between us and we ploughed through the shrubbery as one. Fade back, we’re going nuts down a familiar descent which at comfort zone+10%, suddenly delivered blind bends and trail obstacles that only total confidence and mild stupidity could overcome. A storm blown tree nearly ended it for us both but again we survived laughing more than a little hysterically. The edge is out there, you have to go and find it and then pull back pretending you’re braver than you really are.

Close to home, we chose rough over smooth and ground up a b@stard road climb to race the setting sun on a final descent. I was out front skirting the mud on the flat searching for a line as the trail angled into the category marked “fun”. Flat backed onto the stem to avoid the low hanging branch of fear, we increased our speed on the off road rumble strip made up of roots and logs. But we weren’t outside the zone yet – we could see it but in a “back to the future” moment, the speed wasn’t there, it was good but it wasn’t sex. Not yet.

And suddenly it was. Cresting a bank where the horses couldn’t go, the trail dropped away close to infinity. Now the bike is alive warning you that the rush must be earnt because gravity and reality will not only bite you in the arse but also break all your teeth. You push the thought away as the speed builds and the tyres squirm, fighting for grip. It’s a battle they quickly lose but you’re in that place where the trail pixies fire up the adrenaline compressors and you’re chasing the dragon in every vein. Eyes on stalks, senses heightened, laughing like the bad guy in a ‘b’ movie and never, just never, wanting this to stop. There’s a compression here but you’re though it so fast, the bikes’ fight for traction is over as the ground drops away for a second. Now it’s back and it’s gunning for you throwing out logs and rocks like sirens. Don’t look, don’t listen – this isn’t a Greek Tragedy, it’s just a bunch of guys who’ll try and explain this to their wives and girlfriends and receive the thousand yard stare in return. It doesn’t matter, we’re nearly done and the eyes pop back into the forehead but the shit eating grin remains firmly in place.

Fast forward to rides’ end. I’m working the car park, trying to convey what we’ve felt, selling to the converted and being rewarded with nods and slack jawed grins. There’s something truly fantastic about knowing it’s only us that get it. We’re like a warrior caste except our mystique doesn’t generate respect or fear. But that’s ok, we’ve been there and we’ve done that. We’ve ridden past fat guys imprisoned in their metal car cage steering with their gut and prim ramblers more concerned with maps than madness. We like to think we’re better than our peers because we push it a little bit. Not for us the domestic drudgery or the acceptance of a youth rapidly descending into middle age. We’re wrong by the way, we’re not better, we’re just different. And odd. But that’s ok. It’s probably enough.

So the adrenaline was still coursing in my veins as I flashed past a bunch of earth bound misfits registering their shaking heads as my reason to be. If this article has been written for Singletrackword, there would be clamours from the bullshitting classes for an apology for being so irresponsible. Drinking and driving, braking the speed limit, reckless overtaking, etc, etc. But it isn’t and I’m not apologising for anything. Except for the Robbie Williams tribute song. For that, I am truly ashamed.

Alex Leigh - April 2004